Hedychium coccineum 'Tara'

Cool-hardy ginger, with a particularly beautiful dense inflorescence, consisting of many, attractive, delicately scented orange-red flowers with striking stamens. Growth is quite upright and an adult clump can reach up to 2 m in height.

This plant originated from seeds wild collected in Nepal by Tony Schilling of Kew Gardens. The resulting seedlings were uniform and collectively were named 'Tara' in 1972. Tara was Schilling's daughter, but also is the Nepalese word for "star". The website "San Marcos Growers" reports that it was originally identified as a selection of Hedychium coccineum by Brian Mathew, but more recently as a form or hybrid of Hedychium gardnerianum by Hedychium specialist Tom Wood.
Tara is Mr Schilling's daughter but the word also means "star" in Nepalese. It is a probably a form or hybrid of Hedychium gardnerianum. 

Cold hardiness of Hedychium Tara

This species grows well at different temperatures and it does not need any hot weather to make good growth. It can defoliate in winter and it is ideally kept at 5-10 ° C when dormant, but it can take real frost if planted in a protected place with a correspondingly thicker layer of mulch. Growers in the Sothern U.S.A. had clumps surviving down to -20 C !! In Europe it is different, as winters are comparatively longer , but this ginger is still half-hardy in the UK, where it can hibernate outdoors well in mild areas.

Drainage is very important as cold wet soil can kill the plant even without frost!

What do we ship?

We ship healthy field-grown rhizomes with at least two active growing points. Visit this LINK and see pictures of our plants and rhizomes ready for shipping. Learn more about what we put in the box.